Chapter 15 - Out of the Marble Hall
The sheriff tore off the bottom half of a form and handed it to Dad.
It was just a thin pink slip, but Dad folded it real careful and put it in the front pocket of his denim shirt like it mattered. I saw the number written across the top in black pen. He tapped his chest once after, right over the pocket.
"You got that?" the sheriff asked.
"I got it," Dad said. "Bat goes with you. Kids go with me."
He didn't say it loud. He didn't have to. Everybody left in the hall heard him anyway.
Maya was still holding my sleeve. Her fingers had gone numb and cold, and when the lady deputy tried to give her a blanket she shook her head and pressed closer to me instead. Dad crouched down in front of us, his khakis scraping on the marble. His shirt smelled like sweat and outside air.
"You ready to walk out of here?" he asked.
Maya nodded. I nodded too. He held out both his hands, palms up. Not grabbing. Just waiting. I took his left. Maya took his right. His hands were rough and warm.
Behind the rope of chairs where they'd moved her, our stepmother was sitting with a security guy and another deputy. She wasn't crying anymore. Her burgundy dress was wrinkled at the knees and one heel strap had slipped down. The bat wasn't next to her now. It was already in a long paper bag by the sheriff's case, tagged at the end.
She looked up when she saw us stand.
"Please," she said. "Just let me tell them goodnight."
Dad didn't turn all the way. "No," he said. "Not tonight."
"You can't just —" she started.
The sheriff cut in, quiet and flat. "Ma'am, we went over this. You stay inside until we finish. They leave with their father."
That was it. No yelling. She sank back in the chair and stared at her hands. One of the onlookers from earlier, a woman in a long gray dress, wouldn't even look at her. Nobody was holding their hands over their mouths anymore. They were just tired and watching.
The sheriff walked with us toward the double doors. His boots made a steady sound on the marble that I could feel in my teeth.
At the doors, the night guard pulled both sides open. Cold air came in fast and hit my face. It smelled like parking lot and rain and cut grass from somewhere past the lights. After that bright hall, the outside looked almost black except for the row of lamps and Dad's truck sitting alone near the curb with its hazards blinking.
I stopped. I couldn't help it.
I looked back one time.
The chandeliers were still on, all lit up, throwing little bright spots across the ceiling. Under them the marble floor was empty where the bat had been. Someone had mopped it, and there was a wide damp patch that caught the light. No bat. No crowd around us. Just chairs pushed back and the double doors standing open and the sconces glowing against the white walls.
It looked like a different place without her standing over us.
"You okay, Leo?" Dad asked.
"Yeah," I said. My voice sounded hoarse. "Just looking."
He squeezed my hand. "We don't have to come back in here."
We stepped out. The doors swung shut behind us with a heavy click, and the sound of the hall cut off like somebody turned it down. For a second all I heard was our shoes on the concrete and Maya breathing through her nose.
The truck door creaked when Dad opened the back. He lifted Maya in first, then me. He buckled us both himself, pulling the belts snug, checking them twice the way he always did.
The sheriff stood by the driver's window and handed Dad a card through it.
"That's the case number again and the non-emergency line," he said. "You stay somewhere else tonight. Your place is fine tomorrow after we clear it. I'll call you by ten in the morning about the follow-up and the victim advocate."
"We'll be at my brother's," Dad said. "In Fairview. I'll have my phone on."
"Good. No contact with her tonight. If she calls or shows up, you call us."
"Understood."
Dad started the engine. The headlights washed over the front steps and the tall glass and the sign for the gala that nobody had taken down yet.
In the back seat, Maya finally let go of my sleeve and grabbed Dad's headrest instead, leaning forward.
"Dad?" she whispered. "Is it true? She won't live with us?"
He met our eyes in the rearview mirror. "What happened in there — her raising that bat over you because she was mad about tonight — that was wrong. There's a report now. She doesn't get to be around you until other grown-ups say it's safe. And I'm not going to let it happen again."
May you like
It wasn't a big speech. It settled anyway.
He backed out slow, held both our eyes one more second in the mirror, then put his hand back on the wheel and drove us away from the lights toward the highway and his brother's house.
